“I wish they had sent me to the electric chair—I would be better off in the end. “Just think of it—thirty-three years in prison, and yet it is all my own fault. “When I come out, if I live out my sentence, I will be an old man—sixty years of age. Such a sentence is simply a civil death.” A Young Man Whose Craze Was In Slashing Ladies’ Dresses In one of my early experiences with criminals it was my fortune, or misfortune, to have met a young man named Max Krebs who was a rank destructionist. He was a German by birth, and had only been in this country about a year. He must have been shipped away from the Fatherland by his own people as a degenerate or the black sheep of the family. He was a good looking young man, well dressed, light hair, brown eyes, and a florid complexion. He was fairly well educated, pleasant in manners and must have come from a respectable home. I am satisfied now that his people must have been well to do for they sent him regular monthly allowances to pay his board and to keep him in clothing. But he was a degenerate and clearly insane when in a crowd of ladies. Whenever the opportunity came to him he sought to cut their dresses with a pen knife or sometimes a small pair of shears. He knew his business so well that hundreds of elegant silk and satin dresses were cut and destroyed on the street but were not discovered till the owners returned home. In giving their testimony these ladies always remembered that they saw a young man who looked like a Teuton “crowd up” against them on the street. And while they could not identify him positively, the defendant looked very much like the dress slasher. On several occasions Max missed imprisonment by the skin of his teeth simply because he could not be identified. In December, 1898, he was arrested on Fourteenth Street, near Fifth Avenue, charged with cutting ladies’ dresses; the technical charge was malicious mischief. The crime was committed around the holidays when the streets in the shopping district were densely crowded. Many complaints had been made to the police that such a man was at large—whose only business was to ruin female attire. He was the victim of some insane delusion, although he never showed it in his speech. I questioned Max many times and tried to look him straight in the eye but he could not stand that—his eyes were not honest and, alas, like many another young degenerate he could not be depended on. As a first-class liar Max would have carried off the prize anywhere, and this was his main stock in trade in securing sympathy from Christian people and at the same time deceiving them. From first to last I entertained grave doubts respecting this boy as I was not sure what was the best thing to do in his case. I simply gave him the benefit of the doubt.